Articles/Books

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Does Merit Merit Abandonment?

by Wes White

[Editor's note:

This article was originally posted at

Johannes Weslianus, the former site of PCA Pastor Wes White. Reprinted with permission]

In his little book, The Call of Grace, Norman Shepherd
makes the astonishing claim that the root of the “problem” of evangelical
Protestantism is that they have not “always rejected the very idea of merit
itself” (p. 61). Consequently, he claims, they have never been able “to
challenge the Romanist doctrine of salvation at its very root” (pp. 61-62).

Is this the answer for Reformed Protestantism? Does
Shepherd’s suggestion merit our consideration?

In order to answer that question, we should first ask, “What
is merit?” The English word “merit” is taken from the Latin. The verb mereri (to
merit) means to earn something, to deserve something, to gain something, or to
be due a reward.

When we speak of this word in theology, we are referring to
the value of moral actions. Now, the question is: do moral actions deserve
anything? Are they worthy of any reward? Is there any response that is due from
God or other humans that is proportional to the moral action?

We would like to consider these questions in light of
pre-fall Adam, sinful men, Jesus Christ, and those who are saved.

Pre-Fall Adam

Norman Shepherd describes his view of those who believe that
Adam could merit eternal life as this, “It is a matter of simple justice to
reward perfect obedience with eternal life” (CG, p. 26). He admits that
“different theologians describe the covenant of works with a variety of nuances
that we cannot go into here” (Ibid.).

Whatever different nuances Reformed theologians might have
had on this point, to my knowledge, no Reformed theologian of the 16th-18th
century would have said that this was a matter of simple justice. For
example, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that man “could
never have any fruition of [God] as their blessedness and reward, but by some
voluntary condescension” (7:1). The Formula Consensus Helvetica said
that God “in this Covenant freely promised [Adam] communion with God,
favor, and life, if indeed he acted in obedience to his will” (Emphasis mine,
Canon 7). Whatever “different theologians” might have said, they agreed that
this reward of eternal life was not a matter of simple justice or the mere
nature of things. By setting up a straw man, Shepherd makes you believe that he
is creating a third way different from the covenant of works and covenant of
grace. This is a trick to give the rest of his arguments more plausibility.

On the other hand, we must say that if Adam obeyed God
perfectly, then he would have merited justification before God. That is, Adam
would have merited being declared righteous on the basis of his own
righteousness. The question is, what would have been adjudicated to him on the
basis of that declaration? The Reformed theologians unanimously stated that it
was life (whether eternal in heaven or in paradise). The promise to give Adam
life on the basis of Adam’s inherent righteousness was free. God’s
justification of Adam on the basis of perfect obedience was not.

Perfect
obedience does merit justification by simple justice. In other words, God could
not not declare Adam righteous if Adam obeyed Him perfectly. He would certainly
merit justification on the basis of his obedience or works. Since God freely
promised to reward such righteousness with life, we can also say that loosely
speaking, Adam would have merited life.

This is why Reformed theologians have spoken of Adam as
meriting life by a covenant. That is, God freely added a promise to adjudicate
to man eternal life based on the obedience that Adam already owed him. Calvin explains
this well in his discussion of Ezekiel 20:11,
“But the solution is at hand, that we deserve nothing, but God graciously binds
himself to us by this promise.” The promise of eternal life is summarized in
the language “Do this and live” (Lev. 18:5, Ez. 20:11,
Mt. 19:17, Gal. 3:12, etc.).

If we reject the idea of “merit itself,” then we must say
that perfect obedience did not merit justification. Does that mean that Adam
could sin and still be justified? Or was his justification related in any way
to his obedience? If justification is unrelated to perfect obedience, then the
relation between Christ’s obedience and our justification is called into
question. This is also important because we must carefully distinguish the way
of justification before the fall and the way of justification after the fall.
The law describes the way of justification before the fall, “Do this and live.”
The Gospel describes the way of justification after the fall, “Believe in Jesus
Christ.” By denying merit altogether, this all important distinction will
readily be confused (and is in fact as I have demonstrated here). [editor's note: this link is no longer active]

Man in Sin

It is important to understand that if we “reject the very
idea of merit itself,” then we would have to reject the idea that sin merits
hell. Merit refers not simply to a positive reward but also to a negative one.
We can merit punishment or reward.

The Bible says that “the wages of sin is death.” If we
reject the idea of merit itself, then what do we make of this statement?

On the contrary, Christians do say that sin merits death,
but in what sense? Even though God gave Adam the commandment, “The day you eat
of it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:17), we would not say that the penalty of
death is simply the result of God’s covenant. Sin does not merit hell by
covenant.

Rather, sin merits hell by condign or strict merit. Sin
merits hell by simple justice. It is inherently worthy of hell. Otherwise, why
would God send people there? Sin is an infinite offense because it is against
the “infinite majesty of God.” Therefore, it merits eternal hell.

Now, if we reject the concept of merit itself, then we are
left with some very strange results. Does God send people to hell who haven’t
merited it? Could God send someone to hell who has not sinned? You might say,
“But they don’t deserve it.” But if we deny the concept of merit itself, then
how can we use the word “deserved”?

On the other side, on the basis of the denial of merit, we
could go in the other direction and say that no one will be sent to hell. We
might say that no one goes to hell. We might say that Adam could sin and then
still inherent eternal life. If we deny the concept of “deserving (meriting)
hell,” then how are we immune to any of these questions?

This is all the more serious because Jesus came to save us
from our sins. What does His satisfaction mean if sin does not merit
punishment?

Jesus Christ

Did Jesus Christ merit for and on behalf of His people? We
would certainly want to say that Christ merited for us. The Belgic Confession
says that we “embrace Jesus Christ with all His merits” (Art. 22). Jesus obeyed
for us (Heb. 10:9-10), and by that obedience, we are made perfect forever (Heb.
10:10, 14).

Moreover, while we do not deny that there was a covenant
between the Father and the Son that He would redeem a people for Himself, it
was not simply on the basis of this covenant that He merited for His people.
Rather, He merited because His obedience and sufferings for us were inherently
meritorious. The whole point of Hebrews 7-10 is that, as opposed to the
Levitical sacrifices, what He does is inherently able to redeem transgressions
and secure the eternal inheritance (Heb. 9:15). Here we have the example of
condign merit par excellence.

But what if we deny the concept of merit itself? Then, we
must say that Christ did not redeem us by an obedience and sacrifice that
earned for His people a right to life and forgiveness of sins.

But let us take this further. Shepherd does admit that “the
ground of justification—the basis on which forgiveness is possible—is the
suffering and death of our Lord.” (Backbone of the Bible, p. 89). But why is
this possible? Did Christ’s suffering and death merit the forgiveness of sins?
If we deny the concept of merit itself, then we cannot say that Christ merited
the forgiveness of sins. We may say that it is the reason why sins are
forgiven, but we cannot say that this atonement merited, earned, or deserved
the forgiveness of sins.

Again, this is the consequence of a denial of merit itself.
If we reject the concept of merit itself, then we cannot say that Christ
merited for us either eternal life or the forgiveness of sins on the basis of
His obedience or sufferings.

The Salvation of Sinners

The place where Reformed theologians have historically
denied merit altogether is simply in this: we cannot perform any work that in
any way merits salvation or justification before God. As the Belgic
Confession says, in justification we must come to God “without presuming
to trust in any thing in ourselves, or in any merit of ours” (Art. 23). They
certainly did not deny the concept of merit itself, but they did deny, in
contrast to Rome, that a sinner
could merit anything at all from God.

This is where the helpful distinctions of merit into
condign, congruent, and covenant merit can help us understand this even more
clearly. We do not have condign or congruent merit in our salvation because
even pre-fall Adam could not have that. We also do not have merit by the
covenant because even covenant merit is not based on God merely arbitrarily
rewarding eternal life to something that had no merit at all. The adjudication
of eternal life would have been founded upon Adam’s own inherent righteousness,
which was inherently worthy of justification before God. Such a situation could
never take place in fallen man, and thus fallen man can in no way be said to
merit life by the covenant.

This is all the more true because the meriting cause of
justification and life for sinners is not their own righteousness but the
righteousness of Jesus Christ. In the covenant of works, perfect obedience
would merit eternal life. In the covenant of grace, God gives forgiveness and
eternal life through the merits of Jesus Christ alone. Of course, this does not
mean that there are no rewards whatsoever, but, as we see again in the Belgic
Confession, “it is through His grace that He crowns gifts.” That is, He gives
us one gift and then another gift that follows it.

Now, if we deny the concept of merit altogether, then we can
say that we do not merit our salvation. But we also lose the distinction
between Adam’s merit and ours. Thus, Shepherd can easily say, “the method of
justification for Adam before the fall is exactly what it is for Paul after the
fall: ‘The righteous will live by faith’ (Rom. 1:17)” (Reformation and Revival 14/1,
p. 76). See my critique of this idea here.

[editor's note: this link is no longer active]

Furthermore, we could not say that we must not “presume in
any merit of ours” because there is no such thing as merit. Consequently, we
can just as easily bring works back into our justification because merit itself
is denied. Hence, it is not surprising to find Shepherd claiming that the works
that Paul excluded from the justification of a sinner “were not good works” (Backbone,
99). While attempting to exclude merit itself from our salvation, Shepherd has
brought good works back into our justification.

Conclusion

Someone might object here that Shepherd does not draw all
the consequences that we draw here. This is true. We are simply deducing what
it would mean to deny the “concept of merit itself.” Remember. He is the one
who said that we should deny the very idea of merit itself. We have simply
shown what the logical consequences of such a denial entail.

Even if Shepherd drew none of the consequences that we have
mentioned here (but he does draw some of them), it is completely irresponsible
for a teacher and professor of theology to make such a radical claim that can
create such complete confusion in theology. But this is all the more true when
he makes this unqualified statement in the context of correcting the entire
evangelical Church and being able to bring a reconciliation about between Rome
and Protestantism, “Is there any hope for common understanding between Roman
Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism regarding the way of salvation? May I
suggest that there is at least a glimmer of hope if both sides are willing to
embrace a covenantal understanding of the way of salvation” (Call of Grace, p.
59).

On the contrary, the denial of the concept of merit itself
is dangerous. It leads to absurd consequences, overturns the entire moral
order, introduces all sorts of bizarre paradoxes into theology, and ultimately
overturns our salvation in Christ. A denial of merit itself would mean that
Christ did not merit salvation, sin does not merit hell, Adam could not merit
life, and Christ’s death did not merit the forgiveness of sins. Even if
Shepherd is not consistent with his own demand to deny merit itself, we must
respond to his call to deny merit itself with an emphatic “Nein!”

The great theologians of the Reformed Church did not deny
merit but rather carefully distinguished the merit of pre-fall Adam, Christ,
and sinful man. Even in the heat of the battle with Rome, they did not deny
merit altogether because they realized that such a denial would bring in utter
nonsense.